Wherein can be
found theanonymous
texts of actual letters written to me, and
my answers in return. They are included because it has been
suggested that the discussions are of value. The letters are
presented as a rather loose, ongoing continuous dialogue between a hypothetical
questioner, and myself.

I really love the
website. As a 18 year old, who is fascinated
by the idea of changing sex, partially becuase of my own gender
dysphioria. I'm quite religious, and in my mind there always appears
to exist a conflict between God and Transsexuality. Are you
religious, and if so, how do you cope with this internal
conflict, if it exists in your mind? I know that I'll never have the
surgery, partially because of the fear of pain and the
finality, I think rejection is another very real fear, yet at
the same time I wouldn't class myself as a transvestite as my
desire to be a woman is very real, and not a source of sexual
pleasure or entertainment. I think as I believe a woman thinks, I
speak as a woman speaks, yet I have no word or category to
associate myself with. I feel that this goes way beyond simply
being a homosexual characteristic. PLEASE HELP! The only way I
feel that the female aspects of my personality can be
manifested are when I leave home for university- the freedom
will allow me to express myself without the fear of my Muslim parents
disapproving. How do you think transsexuality fits into religion? How
do you deal with the conflicts?

You have asked
quite a question, in asking me how I relate religiously to
transsexuality. I will answer, though.

I personally
have no conflict, nor do I see a conflict, whatsoever, between
religion and being transsexual.

I do see
conflict between human bigotry, and transsexuality, though....deadly conflict.

Islam, Judaism
and Christianity all share the same basic roots, and even much of the
same texts, and all three have passages regarding how 'male and
female' are together in the soul, and much else besides. They also
seem to share passages condemning homosexuality and crossdressing,
but none of the big three can address transsexuality, because they
cannot even recognise that it exists.

I really do not
care, to tell you the truth. 2000+ years is a long time, and the
bottom line is that real is real.

It is real that
gravity exists, and will kill a person who falls from a great height,
no matter what they believe. It is true that the earth circles the
sun and that the moon orbits the earth as a planet, whether or not
the Catholic Pope pardons Galileo or not. And babies are born with
physical and neurological defects and mutations all the time, just as
they always have, for all time.

One such
mutation, or 'defect', or whatever one wishes to label it, is the
biochemical events that occur in a fetus that lead to homosexuality,
or in the extreme form, transsexuality. It happens in animals,
including the animal known as mankind.

This is reality
seen unflinchingly. Some babies are born with obvious physical sex
differences, they are called 'intersex' babies, and are often altered
to fit one sex or another. When they grow up, if the doctors guessed
wrong, they get really upset, and they seek to have the problem
corrected. This is reasonable: there is a sex for the body, and a
separate sex for the brain. Sometimes the two do not match in some,
or all degrees. Snipping the body does not change the brain. Snipping
the body can only change the garment the brain, the mind, the soul
wears. Hopefully to a proper fit.

The problem
with religion today is that it is built on really, really ancient
books written by ordinary men ('inspired' or not, they were still
just men) who only knew what was known in the time they lived in.
They knew nothing of the nature of the universe but what they could
see in a desert sky, and the intricate and amazing clockwork of life
was to them only a sticky mess that would gush out of a butchered
animal, or slain man. Mysteries and gore.

Now we can
identify, and deliberately create, animals who lack heads, or limbs,
or other such genetic and developmental errors at will, and of course
many neurochemical alterations as well, among them transsexuality and homosexuality.

Transsexuality
is real. It is part of nature, it is a biological event as clear as
the living cells of the cornea of the eye, or the hydrochloric
acid inside a stomach.

Those who
preach any given religion may have great issues with all sorts of
things. The Catholics killed and imprisoned people for daring to
suggest that the moon was an imperfect cratered body instead of a
perfect pearl, and I do not think I need to draw similar comparisons
in the behaviors of the fervent believers of Islam, Judaism, or any
other major religion. Observing reality can make some religious
people nervous, if what is actual conflicts with what is traditional.

When religion
tries to make any statement or law, about something it cannot
possibly address, to which the texts of the religion are blatantly,
clearly, utterly out of date, knowledge, or possibility of
understanding, and when people try to enforce such ancient ignorance
blindly, for no other reason than it is old, I consider that one of
the greatest true evils mankind can commit.

It is the evil
that leads to slaughter, and torture, and misery, all for the sake of
a wisdom half understood from an ancient age that had no
understanding whatsoever.

If this is what
any god wants, then I stand against that sort of god, utterly. I do
not care how scary a god is, a tyranny of ignorance cannot be tolerated.

But I do not
think that any god would want such a thing. We humans do it to
ourselves, clinging to moldering books, out of date, and out of time.

We are the
product of reality. If reality is the work of any god, then all the
things in reality are the creation of god.

If this is
true, then transsexuality, being a real thing, a natural thing, as is
homosexuality as well, is the creation of god just as surely as the
moon, gravity, or babies born without legs.

A person cannot
just grow new legs by wishing, and a transsexual or homosexual cannot
reconstruct the neural cells of their amygdala and hippocampus just
by wishing either. Just because something is hidden inside the skull,
where we cannot see it, does not make it less real. Real is real. And
where reality intrudes, religion, must bow.

So, either god
is an evil tyrant beyond vileness, or the things of nature have some
purpose. We cannot be other than what we are, and to ask the legless
to dance or be damned forever is despicable.

Transsexuality
is a matter of birth. No amount of religious intolerance can cure it.
But hormones and surgery, real things, can. And in this 'cure' comes
some measure of happiness and productivity in life, which means
everyone benefits.

If this is
ungodly, if happiness and productivity and sparing people from agony
and misery is ungodly, then I am forever the enemy of god.

Surely god is
not that evil.

So therefore,
any religious passage condemning anyone for how they are born, must
be in error. It must be ignored.

This still will
not save you from being stoned or burned or stabbed or shot to death
in certain countries, however. Including the United States, where I live.

So my long
winded argument boils down to this:

Either being
transsexual, and having the condition treated with hormones and
surgery is a godly thing, or god is an evil tyrant that should be
opposed utterly for the sake of all living things.

I prefer to
believe that if there are any god or gods, that they are not
monsters. I could be wrong, and god could be a psychopathic tyrant,
but I would rather not see things that way.

So, with regard
to religion, transsexuality should be all right, and any religion
that clings to hate in the light of real understanding, must be
modified or ignored altogether. Take your pick.

I say mindless
hate cannot be tolerated, nor misery permitted based on books and
scrolls 2000 years past their Freshness Expiration Date. I have had
my fill of a history of Inquisitions, Jihads, and general genocide.

If there is a
god, then I think being Queer is just fine in Her book.

I am doing pretty
well since my transition, and I am happy in my
life. Occasionally, however, things still happen that direct
attention my way. Perhaps somebody slips and uses 'he' or something
from my past shows up and outs me, or something like that. A lot of
it may not actually be being outed, but some of it may be. When I am
apparently outed it depresses me because I want to be seen as
genetic, which gets to me since that means I still feel shame for
being what I am. Does this make sense? It's the first time I've tried
to write it out.

Of course it
makes sense! I would, and have, felt exactly the same way. There is a
tremendous urge to 'just have all that past not be', because it IS
something lots of folks have a problem with, and that can make a
transsexual history a burden. Also, after fighting so hard for so
long for some scrap of gender happiness, hearing a wrong pronoun can
feel awful. It hurts even if it has nothing whatsoever to do with
being spotted. English defaults to 'he' in both writing and in much
conversation, so sometimes a slip of 'he' can occur for no reason at
all. My nontranssexual spouse Eldenath has been called he by someone
being careless or distracted...of course it does not hurt her the way
it would me. Such slips, caused by the english default or by being
'spotted', hurt if for no other reason than the whack a sore spot, an
issue transsexual woman have that no one else has. It does not even
have to involve shame for being transsexual, either...it just hurts,
because it feels like a 'loss' in the Big Battle to be accepted as
ourselves. I could not help but flinch at even the most innocent of
pronoun errors, for no other reason than this!

I've never
mentioned being a transgirl to anyone whom I
wasn't absolutely sure knew already, but I think I'd like to. Even
though I started hormones in my early twenties, relatively early,
there is still a good chunk of my life I've lived being perceived as
male. I didn't neccesarily like it, but it's part of who I am, and
consequently I need to talk about it. Of course not all of my stories
are gender specific, but some are, and putting it through that filter
is just another form of deceit; something I've been steadily moving
away from through transition, among other things.

This is what,
after 16 years of hiding my past desperately, drove me to create my
site and effectively Out myself. I just could not stand the mute
feeling of being silent, of never being able to completely express
myself...it began to feel just as much of a prison to me as I felt
before I went through transition. That hit me: the whole reason I
went through transition was to be myself freely, without restraint or
affectation. Here I was living an affected role, this time trying to
be a nontranssexual, mundane woman. I am not mundane, I cannot be
ordinary, and when I think about it, find being an ordinary woman
revolting. So many of them are quite awfully dull, shallow, and,
well, cowlike. Men are no better, but I feel more grief towards the
members of my own gender...I fought hard to be known as female, and
so many females are really bound by roles and limits. Grrrr.

I am what I am,
and it is not Popeye, but it is one of a kind. I reasoned that there
was no point to my transition if I just got stuck again in a prison
for my soul. But...and this is a big, wide, round, fatty sort of
but...(oh I am soooo humorous in a juvenile manner) I did need the
years of hiding just to sort myself out and be free from the weight
of being 'different'. Sometimes being in the closet can be very
healing. Animals need to lick their wounds and hide away sometimes.
Sometimes for long times.

It's like I want to
be true to myself, but I want a different
self, a non-transsexual identity. What thoughts do you have about
this? Do youdrive yourself
crazy wondering/worrying about "who knows"? Did you go
through a phase like this? Am I even articulating it clearly enough?I'd love to hear
some of your thoughts.

I used to drive
myself nuts, and everybody around me as well, with my endless
paranoia about 'who knows do you think?' 'Is that guy staring at me?'
'Do I pass OK? Hows my hair? Do I look OK? Is anybody going to be
able to tell....'

Um...you know
the drill. I cannot imagine a transsexual woman who does not. This
kind of insecurity can last for years. Even now, it can sometimes
hit, and the last time anyone 'spotted' ('Clocked', 'Read',
'Scanned', and so on...) me was in 1985, and that was a guy who
deliberately sought out transsexuals. If i am spotted today, no one
ever says anything, or gives me any indication. I am probably
considered quite eccentric, but, well...I am. But I do, on occasion,
still have moments of transsexual insecurity. Perhaps one never
completely gets over the trauma...and it is trauma...of going through
the hell halfway between the sexes, during transition proper.

So, all that
you describe is unfortunately par for the course, and ever so basic
to the experiences of being transsexual. It is dreadfully common, in
fact, to the experience of being 'T'. This can be comforting; there
is not to my knowledge a single transsexual that has not been plagued
with such worries and issues, often for years and years. It can also
be seen as annoying...like the symptoms of a cold, very common,
unpleasant, and part of the very definition of having a cold. The
kind of annoyance that is too ordinary to really enjoy bitching
about, yet dreadfully bothersome nonetheless. Sigh.Why do I feel that
being transsexual is so evil? Why do I feel like
it is something dirty or bad? I have friends who care, Friends
I met over the net, other transsexuals, but I still feel really
alone and bad. It feels like I can't talk to my family anymore
and when I try to I feel scared of them. I feel like
everything hates me, or that just being me is wrong somehow. I feel
like I am damned to going to hell and that I am evil. Why does
everyone seem to think being a transsexual is so awful? How did this
happen? Why?

Guilt and shame
about being transsexual is caused by the things we are taught in our
culture. Currently, it was not always so, any exceptionality with
regard to gender or sexual preferance is considered by many people to
be taboo. This is almost entirely due to the influence of organized
religion, which teaches a great deal of hatred, not only towards
others, but also towards ourselves. This hatred is a very nasty
business, but it serves the interests of men seeking power. One way
to achieve power is to offer a big reward, and to invent a great evil
to collectively fight: an 'evil' enemy. If one fights the enemy well,
one will get the reward. Someday. Always someday -other than today!
This results in droves of people seeking the reward, and joining
together to oppose the evil, and that forms a basis for control and power.

This worked
very well for Adolph Hitler: his reward was a utopian ideal, and his
enemy was all non-white races. It works well currently for Islam: the
reward is heaven, and the enemy is all other faiths. It worked for a
long time for Communism: the reward being made a hero of the State
and the People, and the enemy being Capitalism, and it works
incredibly well for Christianity: the reward is 'heaven' and the
enemy is a very loose definition of 'evil' which can include (and has
at one time or another) anything from wearing brightly colored
clothing, dancing, or even just noticing things about the world, all
the way to being gay or transsexual. Christians especially have
historically been one of the more creative groups in arbitrarily
inventing fashions in evils. If it did not result in mass slaughter
and torture, I would find the whole thing rather impressive...as
power games go. In Western society, this is what made being Queer
something associated with guilt and shame.

The scam is to
always have an evil to oppose (any thing can be choosen, it really
does not matter) and a reward delayed until...well...forever. Now all
that is required is leadership...and oh boy, does being a leader pay
well! It is an ancient ruse, an ancient con game, and the horror of
it is that the easiest thing to make 'evil' is any group of people
that are few in number, different in some serious way, and unable to
put up much of a fight.

We have all
been raised from birth, drowning in hate, with several hundreds of
generations of this crap behind us as well. In gets beaten into us,
it is everywhere we look.

That is why you
feel so bad about being transsexual, despite what your mind reasons,
or your heart desires. This is emotional pain, deep set lies and
untruth, and it takes time and courage to overcome. It takes thinking
and reason, it takes being rational, yet it also takes facing your
own feelings, and the programming that created those feelings, and
being willing to work at getting past them. It takes thinking new
thoughts, all your own, and nobody elses. It takes some tears, too.
But it can be done, and it is possible to get past guilt and shame
for simply existing.

It is worth it too.

But it can take
a long time. So be prepared to deal with these feelings for years and
years...they are not conquered overnight. A lifetime of training and
fear is not easy to overcome...but you can feel comforted that you
already possess the three things you need to win and to finally own
yourself with pride: your own thoughts, your own feelings, and a
desire to stop feeling bad for something that should never have been
named 'evil' in the first place.

To be free from
shame, you must own your own mind and heart. Take them back.